House of the Dragon Star Thinks There Might Be Too Much Sex in the Game of Thrones Prequel

HBO's Game of Thrones prequel series, House of the Dragon debuts later this month and when it does viewers can expect some there to be some sex scenes — maybe slightly too many, if you ask series star Matt Smith. Smith, who plays Prince Daemon Targaryen in the upcoming series, told Rolling Stone that the series has quite a few sex scenes, enough that he found himself asking if they really needed all of them.

"You do find yourself asking, 'Do we need another sex scene?'" Smith said. "And they're like, 'Yeah, we do.' I guess you have to ask yourself: 'What are you doing? Are you representing the books, or are you diluting the books to represent the time [we're living in]?' And I actually think it's your job to represent the books truthfully and honesty, as they were written."

He went on to admit that he feels like his character may have slightly too many sex scenes, in his opinion.

"Yeah — slightly too much, if you ask me," Smith said.

While there will be sex in House of the Dragon, executive producer Sara Hess has previously explained that the prequel's approach will be different from that of Game of Thrones, which drew criticism for how it handled some scenes, particularly those of sexual violence.

"I'd like to clarify that we do not depict sexual violence in the show," Hess previously told Vanity Fair. "We handle one instance off-screen, and instead show the aftermath and impact on the victim and the mother of the perpetrator."

She added, "We don't shy away from the fact that our female leads in the first half of the show are coerced and manipulated into doing the will of adult men. This is done not necessarily by those we would define as rapists or abusers, but often by generally well-meaning men who are unable to see that what they are doing is traumatic and oppressive, because the system that they all live in normalizes it. It's less obvious than rape but just as insidious, though in a different way."

House of the Dragon is described by HBO as follows: "The prequel series finds the Targaryen dynasty at the absolute apex of its power, with more than 15 dragons under their yoke. Most empires-real and imagined-crumble from such heights. In the case of the Targaryens, their slow fall begins almost 193 years before the events of Game of Thrones, when King Viserys Targaryen breaks with a century of tradition by naming his daughter Rhaenyra heir to the Iron Throne. But when Viserys later fathers a son, the court is shocked when Rhaenyra retains her status as his heir, and seeds of division sow friction across the realm."

In addition to Smith, the series stars Paddy Considine, Olivia Cooke, Emma D'Arcy, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Fabien Frankel, Sonoya Mizuno, and Rhys Ifans star in House of the Dragon. The cast also includes Milly Alcock, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Emily Carey, Harry Collett, Ryan Corr, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jefferson Hall, David Horovitch, Wil Johnson, John Macmillan, Graham McTavish, Ewan Mitchell, Theo Nate, Matthew Needham, Bill Paterson, Phia Saban, Gavin Spokes, and Savannah Steyn.

House of the Dragon debuts August 21st on HBO.